Tag: craft

Melissa Joseph at Margot Samel

Raised in rural Pennsylvania with little access to museums but within easy reach of her mom’s crafting supplies, New York artist Melissa Joseph developed a textile-based practice resulting in painterly portraits of family now on view at Margot Samel in Tribeca.  Three small pieces in needle felted wool on industrial felt, mounted on found silver plates, are the size of embroidery but use material more akin to impasto painting.  Here, Joseph’s extended family piles on to a living room seat, creating a tangle of bodies as familiar and comfortable as the material depicting them.  (On view in Tribeca through Nov 22nd).

Melissa Joseph, Auntie Loretta, needle felted wool in industrial felt in found silver platter, 10” diameter, 2023.

Jordan Nassar at James Cohan Gallery

A rich array of colors make Jordan Nassar’s flame-worked glass bead sculptures at James Cohan Gallery an immediate and present pleasure, yet the experience of dislocation drives these abstracted landscapes.  Raised in the US, the young Palestinian-American artist grew up understanding aspects of his family’s culture at a geographical remove.  Here, he creates points of entry into imagined landscapes through transparent grids of glass beads.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Nov 21st.  Masks and social distancing required.)


Jordan Nassar, Bab Al-Amoud (Gate of The Pillar), hand-flamed glass beads, steel, wire, 12 x 29 x 10 inches, 2020.

Liza Lou & makers at #apartogether_art

Liza Lou is no stranger to communal art projects, having run studios in California and South Africa employing dozens of craftspeople to hand-make sheets of beads as seen in this textile piece at Lehmann Maupin Gallery from fall ‘18.  Now isolated in her studio by the pandemic, she’s launched #apartogether_art, an open invitation to the on-line community to take inspiration from childhood security blankets and make textiles using materials at hand.  With hundreds of postings, the project testifies to the ubiquity and diversity of the creative impulse.  (Also accessible via apartogether.com).

Pannus, oil paint on woven glass beads and thread, 89 x 95 x 6 inches (approximately overall), 2018.

Michele Grabner at James Cohan Gallery

Handmade blankets rendered in bronze and boldly colored paintings based on the blankets’ patterns orient Michele Grabner’s latest body of work toward the domestic, the personal and the tactile. Each blanket’s form looks ghostly, harkening back to the bodies that used it to stay warm. As 2-D images on the wall, the cozy factor is replaced by a reference to the grid, the ubiquitous underlying principle to much mid-20th century art. Grabner suggests that context is key. (At James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea location, through Jan 28th).

Michele Grabner, Untitled, bronze, 43 ½ x 20 x 12 ½ inches, unique, 2016. Background painting: Untitled, oil on burlap and canvas, 86 ½ x 120 inches, 2016.
Michele Grabner, Untitled, bronze, 43 ½ x 20 x 12 ½ inches, unique, 2016. Background painting: Untitled, oil on burlap and canvas, 86 ½ x 120 inches, 2016.

Tony Matelli at Marlborough Gallery

A sandblasted garden sculpture decorated with bronze sausage is a gratifying opener at Marlborough Gallery for fans of Tony Matelli’s offbeat humor and meticulous craft. But it’s the inverted, nude Adam and Eve sculptures in the back gallery that make the show unmissable. (In Chelsea through June 20th).

Tony Matelli, Warrior (detail), concrete and painted bronze, 55 x 21 x 17 inches, 2015.